Will-o-wisps

That pyramid was a place meant to be a tomb…yet, it was so fancifully decorated with lively plants and colourful gold. Who would make something so contradicting?

Once Marek woke up from fainting, we started exiting that place for good.

The land that sprawled before us outside the temple was not a big desert anymore, like we’d seen going in. It looked like a forest, but not very dense. Something kinda like a savanna.

“This dream just can’t stay consistent,” I commented.

“Dreams never usually do, no?” Marek commented.

At the bottom of the pyramid steps we were greeted by mean looking monsters. These guys looked like animals and giant spiders. The animals were some sort of chimera mix, and a bit more threatening then the spiders.

I didn’t have a problem getting rid of them in my combat mode, but they had a lot of advantage in the night time. Night vision is pretty great for seeing what was attacking, but the humans don’t have that ability. The only light they could rely on was the pretty sky above, a sea of rainbow energy radiating down to brighten things up a tiny bit. Not the most reliable illumination.

We needed to find some shelter and fortify ourselves. Monsters were coming at us from every direction, and I could only attack so many at a time.

In the thick of combat, little stars dropped down from the night sky, taking the form of tiny white flames and dancing wildly. I thought they were some kind of monsters at first, but turns out they were a little different.

- Will-o-wisps Identified! Tagged; Neutral-

“Will-o-wisps.” I uttered.

The wisps were quick to scatter around the monsters, chasing them off with their brightness.

As a show of friendliness, one of them flew right up to us and shifted its shape and colour to appear as a yellow rose. Hanako really liked it and held it in her hands. The wisp didn’t seem to mind.

I guess she really likes flowers.

-Wisps re-tagged; Friendly-

Other little orbs gracefully swarmed around Hanako to get her attention. Then like a stream of stars across a galaxy, glided off to the north, deep into the forest.

With them illuminating the path, they carried authority over the aggression of the monsters, keeping them at bay.

“They’re so pretty.” I awed.

“I suppose so.” Marek said, holding the baby and letting her get a view of the lights too.

The baby’s temperament was much different than before. She seemed very quiet and curious. Her little eyes were mesmerized by the small swirling flames.

The wisps were leading us somewhere. From afar, we saw a large ring of stone pillars, many of which tumbled over as if their purpose had long been extinguished. Some had rock beams across them, connecting several pillars together.

It wouldn’t make for the best shelter, but the wisps guided us here for a reason.

There was magic in the air, I could feel it concentrated very strongly at the center, but it was like a soft spoken voice, not as active as it may have once been.

Our group was granted shelter here by the orbs of light, and they returned to the colourful night sky, making up the stars once more.

“What strange little things,” I said, thankful that they gave us a little spot to rest for a while.

And rest we did. The night was calm, and we didn’t feel the need to stress about anything for a few moments.

A small bed of soft brush made a nice cradle for the baby and Hanako. I wasn’t very tired, so I explored around the stone pillars.

I had a hunch these were related to the ones we’d seen in the sewer labyrinth from before. Very similar symbols were carved into these stones, but a lot of them were toppled over or chipped.

I mean, those wisps wouldn’t have brought us here if it wasn’t important, right? The ones in the labyrinth were a portal, so could this be one too?

“Did you know my grandmother?” Marek asked out of the blue.

“Huh?” I snapped back to reality. “Oh…no. I didn’t.” I answered, closely inspecting the details of the worked stone. “Why do you ask?”

“You quoted her exactly.” Marek sighed. “She used to say, ‘A little food brings up the mood.’”

I was actually quoting him when I said that. So now I know where he got it from.

“My grandmother was the only sensible person in my life,” he chuckled, staring off into the dreamy sky. “We were going to start a bakery together. We always talked about it when I was a child. Silly, right?”

I could picture him in one of those bakers’ hats, shoveling large lumps of dough into ovens like it was some sort of cookie coal furnace.

“What happened to her?” I asked, noting that he had a sullen tone.

“She passed away about a year ago. With her gone, of course that dream never came true.”

“I’m sorry.” I gave him a consoling look. “It still could happen though,” I encouraged. “Nobody says you have to give up on a dream.”

He threw a stick into a campfire we lit up for warmth. Embers rose up into the air.

“My father won’t let me, not anymore. When my grandmother died, the family estate fell on him. The stress from handling politics and every family affair made him realize that he wanted to retire from politics.”

“Which means, he wanted you to take up his place on the Royal Council.”

Marek looked at me with a dead serious gaze. “Let’s just say, we can’t let the other party get a majority in the parliament. That one seat makes all the difference.”

Typical political rivalries.

Now that I think about it…Marek was already part of the Royal Council in the future. So I guess he somehow made it through all the cruddy parts. But how much baggage did he have to drag with him?

“In the future, you do actually join the Royal Council.” I told him.

He nodded as if something was starting to click in his head.

“Y…Yes.”

“I saw you on TV, calming down the public after a demon attacked Urnan. Remember?”

“That was…after that reaper demon, yes?” He really nodded along.

He was starting to remember everything. That was when I realized this really was the real Marek, and not just some dreamed up version of him.

That meant Hanako and the baby were probably real too. I knew Hanako had to be Indena, but who was the baby?

My hands had still been feeling around the pillars. As I brushed some of the details, my palm pressed into part of the stone on the wall. There was some sort of button here. Whatever it was, I cautiously pressed it in all the way and the stone lit up blue.

Each of these stones appeared to have a similar mechanism to them, even the ones on the ground. Unfortunately some pillars had fallen on top of where the buttons might have been.

If Marek had been at his full strength he could have easily lifted these. It wasn’t a big deal for me in my combat mode, but having a little help would have been nice.

“What’s going on?” Marek jumped to his feet. “Did you find something?”

“I don’t know, but let’s see what happens…”

After setting up as many stones I could, assumedly back in their proper position, I pressed in every button.

All the pillars shot beams of light high up into the air, hitting a single point. One massive beam shot from this point and blasted across the sky.

Way off in a distance, a giant portal opened up and sent out a shockwave across the land. It was impossible to miss, like a big bubble of blue in the night sky.

The only thing bridging the earth to this portal was a mountain. But just before the mountain, stood a menacing looking castle. It looked suspiciously similar to the fortress back in Verrenvill…

I bet our scrawny demon lord friend was there too.

“You’re thinking we should go that way, no?” He looked fearful of my answer.

“We’re the heroes. We always go ‘that way.’” I replied.

He let out a deep, very disappointed sigh. “That’s what I afraid of…I’ll go wake up the kids…”